First advertisements for euthanasia to appear in Australia

SYDNEY, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- A "hard hitting" pro-euthanasia campaign will soon appear on television screens and billboards across Australia.

The advertisements will air on late-night television starting from Sunday in Brisbane and then other major cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. The related billboards will also go up "in prominent places around Australia" resulting in a 60,000 AU dollars (54,600 U.S. dollars) advertising fee.

Philip Nitschke, the founder and director of the Australian pro- euthanasia group, Exit International, said on Tuesday this was the first ever publicly advocated campaign in Australia and it was hoped to provoke self-contemplation as well as a public debate.

"It will get a broader group of people considering the issue and, by and large, the more it is discussed the more common sense prevails," Nitschke said.

The campaign was mostly funded by a bequest sent to Exit International from India.

The advertisement portrays an elderly, terminally ill man looking back on the decisions he had made.

"He ends up staring into the camera and that message is addressed to politicians - `Why won't you give me this choice?" Nitschke said.

Euthanasia is illegal in Australia but was legal for a period in the Northern Territory.

However, before the law was overturned by the federal government, four people had already practiced legal voluntary euthanasia, assisted by Nitschke.

Nitschke is the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, voluntary, lethal injection.